New player replacment / open slot rules
Following darvsters proposals I suggest:
"What I believe we need is some sort of notice period for joining players. This could be in the form of when a player joins, firstly a notice is sent out to all players telling them that "Player# has joined the #Race"
"Secondly, the player will not be able to play a turn until the next host run (or the following host run if less than 24hrs) but will be able to look at his turn and take part in diplomatic discussions with all other races"
"This would enable replacement players to join which is always the ideal situation but also give current players time to prepare and discuss with the new player about maintaining/breaking existing treaties before they make their move"
I think, based on this, we could find a really good new handling of open slots. Please comment if you have some further ideas or critics.
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Rand Baker commented
I join most of my games as replacement. I wouldn't bother to join a game that has rules for me and not others in game. Remember these are games we are playing although some wish them to be more. To me a replacement player is no different than having nasty ion storms or or finding only bad planets early in game. sometimes you get unlucky and sometimes lucky. Many things can change your luck, are we going to have to compensate the pirate player when he has the crystals and robots as his neighbors. this is just bad luck for the pirate if his neighbors are competent.
So are the replacement players welcomed to try to keep the game balance or do we go down the road of compensating everyone with bad luck. I think the game needs replacement players to keep players from stripping clusters that have no owners. Once again it is unfair for the player who isn't a neighbor to a open cluster.
so how do you correct these fairness problems. You can't ,
the replacement player usually is inheriting a terrible position because the first player usually is giving up a bad position and they just quit. So I can't see how anyone can also request that the new player must follow special rules. just for him. its hard enough already to pick up and run some of these races.
there is usually over a hundred running games that need replacement players and some even
need more than one or two players. I bet there would be 5 times as many open games if special rules for some were required.
is this clearly selfish motivation from the players who have been in a game and want to win?.
I have played planets off and on from near its beginning and I have seen a lot of game changes and requests but I don't remember seeing requests for limiting one player vs another in actual game play.
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Whisperer commented
> the player will not be able to play a turn until the next host run
That would normally mean that the opponents would have taken more planets from the unmanaged position. This should not happen.
A delay for Diplomacy changes would be reasonable, but the player needs to be able to defend their position.
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JomIII commented
"Secondly, the player will not be able to play a turn until the next host run (or the following host run if less than 24hrs) but will be able to look at his turn and take part in diplomatic discussions with all other races"
Great idea!
First notice all the players and 1 turn after, then the new player do the turn!